ma, 


GOOD   NURSE 


BY 


T^S  H.    McBRIDE 


m  . 
m*: 


A  I 


>"-:-:*. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF  CAPT.  AND  MRS. 
PAUL  MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


THE  GOOD  NURSE 


An   address  delivered  to   the   graduating   class   of   College    Hospital 


JAMES    H.  Mc.-r.RlUE,  M.  I). 

LOS    ANGEF.KS,    CAi,. 


iit   MKHiCAL  RKO'KDKK 
SF.P  n-:Mi;i-  K 


UNIVERSITy  of  CAIJPCWN7 
AT 


•RTG3 

p- 

6 

THE  GOOD  NURSE. 
BY  JAMES  H.  McBRIDE,  M.  D.,  Los  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA. 

AN    ADDRESS    DELIVERED     TO     THE     GRADUATING    CLASS    OF    COLLEGE 

HOSPITAL. 

To  you  who  now  leave  the  Training  School,  this  evening  seems 
important  as  marking  the  end  of  a  long  struggle.  To  those  of  us 
who  look  back  to  graduation  day  across  decades,  the  occasion  is 
significant  rather  as  one  from  which  yon  will  date  another  and  a 
longer  struggle.  The  event  is  an  epoch  in  the  life  of  each  of  you 
such  as  comes  to  all  of  us  in  some  form  and  more  than  once,  and 
through  which  we  gather  up  results  and  go  on  to  new  duties. 

As  he  alone  is  a  good  captain  who  has  studied  the  coast  charts 
and  knows  all  the  perils  of  the  sea,  so  only  are  they  equipped  for 
special  work  who  have  considered  its  duties  and  accepted  its  tasks, 
and  this  you  have  of  course  done  in  choosing  your  profession.  If 
chere  is  any  reason  why  I  should  warn  you  of  possible  mistakes, 
or  counsel  you  of  your  duties,  it  is  that  an  experience  of  many 
years  has  taught  me  something  of  the  qualifications  of  a  good 
nurse. 

I  shall  not  advise  you  to  be  industrious,  for  that  you  are  here 
is  a  certificate  of  industry.  I  shall  not  advise  you  to  be  conscien- 
tious, for  that  belongs  to  qualities  of  character  that  were  formed 
before  you  came  here  and  which  advice  would  not  reach.  I  shall 
not  suggest  that  you  avoid  gossip,  tor  I  am  sure  you  have  too 
much  self  respect  to  carry  the  rubbish  of  the  trivial  incidents  of 
life  into  the  homes  of  your  patients.  I  shall  not  ask  you  never  to 
rehearse  to  one  patient  the  ills  of  another  patient,  for  only  rude 
and  unthinking  people  do  this,  and  you  are  neither. 

I  wish  to  make  use  of  one  sentence  to  say  to  you  that  the 
incidents  of  the  sick  room  are  to  be  considered  sacredly  private, 
and  when  you  leave"  it  you  leave  it  under  the  solemn  obligation  to 
keep  inviolably  secret  the  entire  history  of  those  trying  and  pri- 
vate hours.  I  have  known  nurses  who  did  not  observe  this,  but 
the  nurse  who  fails  here  makes  a  serious  mistake,  for  she  sins  not 
only  against  her  patient  but  against  herself  and  the  ethics  of  her 
profession.  This  is  one  of  the  moral  obligations  of  your  profes- 
sion, of  which  there  are  many.  And  it  is  well  to  remind  you  here 
that  your  duties,  as  are  everybody's  duties,  are  hedged  about  by 
moral  considerations.  At  bottom  all  questions  are  moral  ques- 
tions, and  in  the  great  army  of  thoughts,  purposes  and  volitions 


13988 


that  make  up  our  minds'  interests  the  moral  sense  does  picket 
duty.  Our  daily  work  in  life  of  every  sort,  whether  our  place  be 
great  or  humble,  is  work  whose  ends  are  moral,  whatever  we  may 
ourselves  intend  they  should  be. 

This  view  makes  your  work  of  a  high  order,  and  indeed  it  is. 
If  you  have  a  high  moral  purpose  in  what  you  do  your  work  will 
be  easier  done,  more  cheerfully  done  and  better  done.  Don't, 
therefore,  do  your  work  for  the  sake  of  the  money  only,  but  for 
the  sake,  also,  of  the  service  to  others.  We  who  are  now  living 
in  the  world  are  debtors  to  others  who  preceded  us  and  who,  in 
living  honest  and  self  denying  lives,  made  our  lives  possible,  and 
we  owe  it  to  society  to  render,  by  unse1fish  service,  something  in  re- 
turn for  this  great  inheritance.  In  addition,  therefore,  to  the  money 
interest  and  the  pride  which  we  have  in  our  work,  there  should  be 
in  us  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  missionary,  and  we  should  keep 
steadily  in  view  the  fact  that  we  are  serving  not  ourselves  but 
humanity.  This  is  rather  a  high  ideal,  but  it  is  not  too  high,  and 
it  helps  us  to  do  good  work  and  honest  work.  Honest  work  makes 
honest  men  and  women,  shabby  work  makes  dishonest  men  and 
women.  Back  of  every  stroke  there  is  a  purpose,  either  good  or  bad. 
Work  makes  money,  but  more  than  that  it  makes  character.  We 
owe  it,  then,  to  the  memory  of  the  silent  and  nameless  thousands 
who  have  gone  before  us,  and  of  whose  faithful  lives  we  are 
heirs,  we  owe  it  to  those  for  whom  we  work,  we  owe  it  to  our- 
selves and,  too,  we  owe  it  to  society  of  whose  complex  and  en- 
folding life  we  are  a  part,  to  always  do  our  best,  to  see  that  we  at 
least  put  no  false  threads  into  this  loom  in  which  men's  character 
is  made. 

Your  occupation  is  hardly  second  to  any  in  importance;  you 
are  only  less  essential  than  the  doctor  as  the  limbs  are  less  than 
the  tree  or  the  hand  less  than  the  body.  It  is  possible  for  the 
doctor  in  some  cases  to  get  on  by  hook  or  crook  without  you;  but 
with  you,  if  you  are  careless  or  incompetent,  he  cannot  get  on 
except  by  the  grace  of  luck;  a  septic  instrument,  an  infected  cloth, 
a  soiled  hand,  and  the  most  carefully  treated  wound  becomes  an 
opening  into  which  poison  is  poured  into  the  blood  stream. 
There  is  no  work  in  which  faithfulness  in  little  things  has  larger 
results  than  yours,  for  when  you  are  engaged  in  a  fight  with 
microbes  that  fill  the  air  like  dust  in  August  to  be  careless  is  to  be 
criminal  in  everything  but  intent.  This  is  only  one  suggestion  of 
which  you  may  make  many  applications.  You  cannot  afford  to 
fall  short  of  perfection.  You  must  not  forget,  you  must  not  be 
careless,  you  must  not  trust  yourself  to  sleep  on  the  watch.  A 


life  may  hang  upon  a  single  heart  beat.  If  the  lighthouse  keeper 
sleeps  ships  are  wrecked ;  if  you  sleep  a  life  may  be  lost.  There 
is  no  person  that  walks  the  street  except  the  physician  who  has 
such  immediate  power  over  human  life  as  you  have. 

Some  of  you  may  think  that  your  education  as  nurses  is  finished. 
If  so,  let  me  assure  you  that  yon  are  vastly  mistaken.  Your  work 
of  learning  is  only  just  begun;  many  things  you  know  now  you 
will  either  unlearn  or  learn  better  in  a  few  years,  if  not  in  less 
time.  All  knowledge  is  in  flux,  everything  is  changing,  and  you 
must  grow,  grow,  grow,  or  you  will  be  dropped  and  no  apologies 
offered.  If  you  are  studious  and  progressive,  every  year  will 
make  your  mental  equipment  larger,  your  judgment  surer,  your 
hands  more  deft,  your  services  more  valuable.  There  are  many 
things  about  which  you  have  as  yet  had  no  experience;  there  are 
many  mistakes  that  you  may  make,  some  blunders  perhaps  and 
days  of  regret.  That  which  is  valuable  you  will  learn,  and  learn 
only  in  the  sickroom.  You  cannot  read  skill  into  your  head,  nor 
can  doctors  teach  it  to  you.  You  must  do  the  thing  over  and  over 
to  know  it.  It  is  the  same  with  all  professions.  The  doctor  gets 

i.-    his  skill  at  the  bedside.        The  lawyer  acquires  a  practical  knowl- 

^  edge  of  law  in  court,  and  it  is  especially  true  of  your  work,  that 
depends  so  much  upon  quick  adaptation,  that  you  learn  your  work 

*<    thoroughly  only  by  repetition,  and   that,  too,  a  thousand  times. 

You  must  be  students,    you  mast  continue  to    learn.      Every 

*£  case  is  an  object  lesson  in  nursing  and  you  should  quit  each  patient 
a  better  nurse  than  when  you  begin  with  it.  Never  allow  your- 
self to  think  that  your  training  is  finished.  The  better  nurse  you 
are  the  less  likely  you  are  to  think  this.  Never  allow  yoiirself  to 
think  you  are  as  competent  as  you  ought  to  be  or  as  you  might  be. 
The  chances  are  you  will  always  be  a  little  behind  what  you  might 
be.  It  is  the  case  with  most  people.  Few  people,  very  few,  do 
their  work  as  well  as  they  might  do  it.  There  is  a  little  laziness 
in  the  blood  of  all  of  us;  the  inertias  of  life  hinder  us  on  every 
side.  We  need  ambition,  we  need  the  whip  and  spur  of  necessity 
and  competition,  we  need  to  be  driven  by  the  compulsions  of  life 
or  we  slow  our  speed  and  are  content  with  half  we  might  do. 
Therefore  I  am  justified  in  saying  you  have  much  to  learn,  indeed 
I  might  say  you  have  most  of  your  business  yet  to  learn.  You 
arc  only  at  the  beginning.  You  have  learned  but  the  titles  of  the 
chapters  of  the  book  of  your  profession.  You  should  read  the 
latest  books  on  nursing,  you  should  take  a  magazine  on  nursing. 
Get  new  methods  from  your  reading,  from  physicians,  from  your 
own  experience.  Don't  be  afraid  to  discard  old  methods.  Don't 


I 


get  set  in  certain  ways.  There  are  better  ways  than  yours  if  you 
can  only  find  them.  If  you  pursue  this  course  you  will  be  a  better 
nurse  every  year  you  follow  the  profession ;  you  will  grow,  and  to 
grow  in  knowledge  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  in  life  as  it 
is  one  of  the  best  tests  of  character. 

Your  work  calls  for  qualities  more  important  than  talent,  it 
calls  for  heart;  it  calls  for  sympathy;  it  calls  for  quick  insight 
into  character;  it  requires  that  you  grasp  the  individualities  of 
people  by  a  sort  of  divination  and  with  an  alertness  of  wit  adapt 
yourself  to  all  demands.  It  requires  that  you  know  thoroughly 
every  detail  of  your  work  and  that  you  do  it  not  only  quietly  and 
quickly,  but  with  a  delicacy  and  deftness  that  soothes  and  gives 
pleasure.  There  are  some  trades  for  which  men  and  women  may 
be  fitted  by  a  trained  adaptation  though  having  little  taste  or 
ability  for  them.  The  work  of  a  nurse  does  not  belong  to  this 
class.  The  good  nurse  is  born,  not  made,  and  the  training  that 
you  get  here  only  develops  and  sharpens  those  inborn  qualities 
which  no  art  can  simulate  and  no  training  give. 

The  care  of  the  sick  is  a  sacred  charge  for  which  the  society, 
strange  as  it  may  sound,  holds  you  to  a  strict  account.  I  believe 
that  it  is  well  for  all  of  us  to  realize  that  whatever  we  may  be  doing 
that  in  a  very  real  sense  the  eyes  of  the  community  are  upon  us.  We 
are,  of  course,  not  always  conscious  of  this,  and  it  is  well  that  we 
are  not,  but  when  we  think  of  it  we  must  know  that  all  our  work 
is  public,  that  whether  we  do  our  duty  or  neglect  it  is  a  matter  in 
which  society  has  an  immediate  interest  and  even  if  we  would  we 
could  not  conceal  either  our  motives  or  the  results.  If  we  reckon, 
therefore,  at  its  true  value  our  relation  to  society  we  feel  the  essen- 
tial dignity  of  our  occupation,  whatever  it  may  be.  You  have  no 
right  to  consider  your  profession  inferior  in  any  sense.  Duty 
knows  no  grades  in  occupation.  There  will  be  plenty  of  opportu- 
nities for  you  to  show  the  highest  qualities  of  character.  The 
nurse  who  by  intelligent  care  gives  the  baby  a  healthy  start  in 
life,  or  who  pilots  the  patient  through  the  fever's  crisis  has  done 
in  an  unobstrusive  way  what  when  done  conspicuously  is  called 
heroism.  And  in  your  own  occupation  people  have  come  to  recog- 
nize the  importance  of  your  position. 

Everywhere  the  name  of  nurse  has  become  a  synonym  for 
efficiency,  for  intelligent  assistance  in  time  of  greatest  need,  and 
it  has  become  so  because  a  select  class  of  young  women  has  been 
trained  in  a  special  line  of  work  so  that  they  could  displace  the 
clumsy  and  careless  amateurs.  You  enter  upon  your  duties  with 
the  universal  respect  of  the  public,  and  though  people  may  not 


come  to  you  in  crowds  and  tell  you  so,  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  there  are 
none  who  minister  to  humanity  for  whose  work  there  is  greater 
respect. 

We  are  apt  to  be  unmindful  of  the  interest  people  have  in  us, 
the  unexpressed  but  genuine  sympathy  which  they  feel  for  us,  and 
which  is  the  working  in  unseen  ways  of  the  spirit  of  human  brother- 
hood that  is  growing  everywhere.  It  is  well,  therefore,  that  we 
realize  and  keep  in  mind  the  love  that  there  is  in  the  world  of 
man  for  man,  how  real,  how  tender  and  how  sincere  it  is,  for  we 
can  then  see  the  benevolence  that  operates  beneath  humanity's 
rough  exterior;  that  in  this  busy,  hurrying,  careloaded  world  be- 
sides the  friends  we  know  by  sight  and  the  praise  we  sometimes 
hear,  that  there  are  many  friends  whom  we  may  never  know, 
eyes  turned  toward  us  which  ours  may  never  meet,  kind  thoughts 
of  us  which  will  remain  unspoken,  prayers  for  us  of  which  we 
will  never  hear.  The  world,  however,  silent  and  indifferent  it 
may  seem  concerning  us  and  our  affairs,  is  in  intimate  sympathy 
with  our  every  honest  purpose,  and  however  lonely  life  may  some- 
times seem  it  is  consoling  to  know  that  there  are  millions  of  men 
and  women  who  are  struggling  with  the  same  problems,  offering 
the  same  prayers,  and  who  know  us  and  speak  to  us,  and  clasp 
our  hands  across  the  silent  intervals  of  life. 

In  reckoning  the  value  of  human  action,  let  us  get  a  correct 
view  of  life.  The  test  of  life  is  in  its  faithfulness,  its  value  is  in 
the  work  that  is  well  done.  Not  that  its  faithfulness  be  conspicu. 
otis,  nor  its  work  on  a  large  scale,  but  that  single  minded  devo- 
tion and  honest  efficiency  work  together  for  the  common  end.  The 
genius  is  valuable,  but  he  can  be  spared;  without  the  statesman 
the  world  would  go  a  little  slower  and  would  make  more  mistakes, 
but  in  the  end  it  would  go  in  much  the  same  way;  the  great  man 
can  always  be  spared,  but  there  is  one  man  whom  the  world  can 
never  spare,  and  that  is  the  average  man.  He  is  essential  because 
he  represents  the  great  mass  of  humanity  that  is  doing  the  neces- 
sary work  of  the  world.  The  average  man  is  not  conspicuous, 
indeed,  he  is  rarely  visible.  And  yet:  his  honesty  and  his  stead- 
fastness have  held  humanity  to  its  sober  tasks,  have  made  society 
possible  and  have  age  after  age  help  to  purify  the  stream  of  the 
races'  moral  life.  Who  conquered  at  Santiago?  Was  it  Shafter? 
No.  It  was  the  untitled  and  unreported  heroes  who  charged  and 
won,  and  have  now  dropped  back  and  disappeared  in  the  common 
life.  You  and  I  belong  to  the  great  average  of  men  and  women,  and 
if,  in  our  obscurity,  we  are  sometimes  tempted  to  rail  at  fate,  we 
may  take  comfort  in  the  thought  that  the  world  could  not  get  on 


without  us  for  a  single  day.  The  humble  worker  is,  therefore,  the 
essential  worker,  and  the  important  thing  is  that  he  should  do  his 
duty  willingly,  knowing  that  as  he  lightens  the  load  of  burdened 
lives,  he  is  helping  to  make  the  world  a  little  better. 

The  relation  of  the  nurse  to  the  patient  is  a  delicate  one,  for 
besides  your  ability  to  do  your  work  qualities  of  character  are 
also  necessary  that  have  much  to  do  with  your  success.  You 
should  like  your  work.  You  will  not  do  it  well  unless  you  do. 
You  may  wish  to  escape  some  of  its  disagreeable  features;  there 
are  unpleasant  things  in  all  work.  There  is  drudgery  in  your 
work;  there  ought  to  be.  It  is  not  the  ease  or  the  luxuries  of  life 
that  keep  us  to  our  duties;  it  is  drudgery,  it  is  the  compulsions 
that  tie  us  down  to  duty  when  we  would  wander;  that  train  us  and 
drill  us  in  life's  routine;  that  day  after  day  and  year  after  year 
hold  us  to  a  course  that  develops  persistence,  courage,  determina- 
tion and  that  finally  give  us  the  victory  over  the  small  things  and 
the  large  things.  Drudgery  means  compulsion,  compulsion  means 
discipline,  and  discipline  if  rightly  used  means  character,  character 
means  success;  the  person  of  character  can  never  fail. 

You  should  strive  persistently  to  be  intelligent.  There  is  no 
reason  why  you  should  not  be  cultured,  there  are  many  reasons 
why  you  should  be  cultured.  Your  occupation  does  not  forbid 
it.  Plato  sold  oil  in  Egypt.  Socrates  was  a  stonecutter.  The 
celebrated  Dr.  Thomas  Dick  kept  a  bake  shop.  Thoreau  worked 
as  a  laborer  on  Walden  pond,  and  lived  on  $100  a  year,  and  even 
then  regretted  his  extravagance.  Each  of  us  has  faculties  that 
atrophy  from  disuse,  square  roods  of  capacity  lying  waste  for  lack 
of  energy  to  cultivate  them.  Develop  habits  of  intellectual  indus- 
try, read  good  literature,  know  what  the  world  is  doing,  have  an 
interest  in  things  that  are  not  trivial,  and  then  don't  be  anxious  to 
show  what  you  know.  It  is  not  for  display;  it  is  for  the  uncon- 
scious benefit  it  will  be  to  you.  There  is  nothing  that  improves 
one  so  much  and  enhances  the  value  and  the  loveliness  of  the  per- 
sonality as  an  interest  in  things  that  arc  abgve  the  level  of  the 
ordinary.  It  is  not  easy  to  live  in  the  higher  altitudes  of  life;  it 
requires  a  struggle,  but  you  can  do  it  if  you  will.  Von  cati  be 
coarse  or  you  can  be  refined,  you  can  be  ignorant  or  you  can  be 
intelligent,  you  can  be  a  gossip  or  you  can  have  ideals  that  refuse 
to  be  on  speaking  terms  with  that  poison  monger;  you  can  idle 
away  your  spare  hours  or  you  can  fill  them  with  occupation  that 
makes  for  character  and  culture.  An  interest  in  good  things  and 
high  things  shines  through  the  commonplaces  of  life.  You  cannot 
have  such  interests  and  not.  show  it  in  your  manner,  for  it  enters 


into  everything  you  Bay  or  do.  If  you  are  intelligent  and  cult  tired 
you  will  be  not  the  less  useful,  but  more  useful ;  you  will  be  com- 
panionable for  cultured  people,  without  perhaps  knowing  why  you 
are  so;  you  will  have  opportunities  for  employment  that  otherwise 
would  pass  you  by.  The  world  is  this  very  evening  in  search  of 
nurses  who  answer  to  these  simple  requirements. 

Each  of  you  should  try  to  answer  the  highest  demands  of  a  good 
nurse.  The  good  nurse  is  discreet;  she  not  only  knows  what  to 
say  but  she  knows  that  far  more  difficult  thing,  what  not  to  say. 
She  has  learned  the  lesson  of  self  restraint  in  speech.  She  has  that 
quality  by  which  she  looks  ahead  and  sees  the  consequences  of  the 
unspoken  sentence.  She  thinks  of  her  own  comfort  only  after 
the  patient  is  provided  for  and  every  order  executed.  The  good 
nurse  never  leaves  things  in  disorder  for  her  associate  nurse  to 
arrange.  She  has  that  fine  sense  of  justice  that  leads  her  to  do  a 
little  more  than  her  share.  How  much  better  t.his  world  would 
be  if  each  of  us  did  a  little  more  than  was  expected  of  us.  There 
is  no  higher  praise  than  to  have  it  said,  she  did  more  than  her 
duty.  The  good  nurse  likes  her  patients  and  is  repaid  by  their 
friendship.  Value  friendship;  it  is  a  tender  plant  and  none  too 
common.  The  good  nurse  speaks  well  of  her  competitors.  Of  all 
the  microscopic  meannesses  of  life  there  is  nothing  more  petty 
than  professional  envy.  If  you  have  all  the  virtues  and  lack  this 
one  of  generosity  you  are  mean.  The  good  nurse  speaks  well  of 
people;  she  knows  that  the  habit  of  criticism  is  the  habit  of  a 
pickpocket  and  she  scorns  it.  She  tries  no  experiments  of  her 
own;  she  recognizes  that  she  is  the  doctor's  hands,  not  his  head. 

The  good  nurse  knows  all  the  delicate  touches  that  shield  the 
patient  from  minor  discomforts  and  that  protect  the  weakened 
brain  from  irritation.  She  will  not  allow  a  patient  to  lie  facing  a 
light;  she  keeps  bottles  and  instruments  out  of  sight  and  fills  their 
place  with  flowers.  She  knows  that  not  only  disease  is  contagious, 
but  that  health  and  good  spirits  are  also  catching,  so  that  her 
coming  to  the  sickroom  is  like  a  fresh  breeze  on  a  sultry  day. 

If  you  are  proud  of  your  profession — and  you  ought  to  be — if 
you.  ;eire  conscientious,  and  you  surely  are,  you  will  realize  that  the 
sure  way  to  achieve  success,  the  only  way  to  achieve  it  is  to  do 
your  duty  promptly,  fully  and  cheerfully.  Don't  stop  to  ask  why 
but  do  it;  don't  wait  to  be  asked,  anticipate,  I  say  again,  anticipate; 
and  once  more  I  say,  above  all  things,  anticipate.  Don't  think  of 
something  a  thousand  miles  away,  focus  your  mind  for  short  dis- 
tances, keep  it  on  your  patient.  Don't  write  nor  read  letters  in 
your  patient's  presence.  The  hearing  of  sick  people  is  sensitive. 


Be  alert  but  keep  quiet,  be  speedy  but  don't  rush,  do  your  work 
neatly  but  don't  be  fussy.  Learn  to  be  always  ready.  Few 
people  are.  Learn  to  concentrate.  Keep  your  mind  in  order  and 
you  will  keep  things  in  order.  Be  prepared  for  tomorrow.  Don't 
stop  for  the  night  until  everything  is  made  ready  for  the  morning. 
If  you  are  ready  you  will  etart  right  and  the  right  is  important. 
The  competent  nurse  is  in  part  competent  because  she  can  meet 
emergencies,  because  she  can  master  the  unexpected  problems 
that  arise  and  which  no  instruction  could  anticipate  and  no  books 
could  catalogue.  Remember  one  little  thing  that  in  the  sickroom 
if  not  elsewhere  is  a  big  thing,  that  an  agreeable  voice  is  an  im- 
portant part  of  a  nurse's  equipment.  Don't  key  your  voice  too 
high.  A  pleasant  voice  will  slow  the  heart  beats,  reduce  the  tem- 
perature of  a  fevered  patient  and  shorten  an  attack  of  sickness,  or 
if  not  it  will  come  as  near  it  as  anything  a  nurse  carries  into  the 
sickroom. 

Your  manners  are  not  unimportant.  You  will  be  with  refined 
people.  They  have  a  right  to  expect  refinement  of  you.  Manners 
do  not  make  the  man,  but  man  makes  his  manners;  manners  are 
a  soul  index,  they  are  an  echo  of  character.  We  are  made  of 
malleable  metal,  the  events  of  life  are  hammering  us  to  a  final 
shape.  What  we  are  is  the  result  of  what  we  did;  what  we  shall 
be  is  limited  by  what  we  wish  to  be.  We  cannot  outgrow  our 
past,  it  is  part  of  us;  we  rise  out  of  it  with  its  mistakes,  its  sor- 
rows and  its  triumphs.  What  we  like  and  what  we  think,  what 
we  say  and  how  we  say  it,  what  we  do  and  our  manner  of  doing 
it,  all  these  are  daily  influencing  us,  and  the  results  of  which  we 
cannot  escape.  Don't  think  to  get  a  pleasant  manner  by  sham- 
ming the  niceties  of  life.  Refined  hypocrisies  are  offensive,  and 
honest  people  hate  them.  Avoid  pretences  of  every  kind.  Love 
humanity,  be  direct,  sincere  and  simple,  and  you  can  hardly  fail  to 
have  a  pleasant  manner. 

Remember  that  your  patient's  character  has  been  changed  by 
sickness,  and  not  for  the  better,  for  the  normal  restraints  are 
weakened  by  disease  and  the  frailties  that  health  hides  will  meet 
you  hourly.  They  demand  calmness  and  tact  and  the  patience 
that  looks  beyond  the  present  hour  to  the  day  when  .you  will  >yin. 

Remember  that  however  competent  and  faithful  you  may  6e 
your  patient  may  not  keep  you.  Accept  it  kindly  and  show  by 
not  being  offended  that  you  are  a  lady.  Such  experiences  come 
to  all  of  us  who  serve  others. 

Remember  that  there  will  be  accidents  and  trying  moments 
that  will  demand  the  steady  nerve  and  cool  head  of  a  soldier. 
Have  that  quiet  courage  that  is  sure  of  every  resource. 

The  requirements  of  the  Greek  physician  apply  to  you,  that  he 
have  an  eagle's  eye,  a  lady's  hand  and  a  lion's  heart. 


1  3 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


JUL    IS 


JUN8 

«L  2  ?  195;  , 

•-T75  r      '" 


f£B1 


21959 


ft 


DEC 


Form  L-9-35m-8,'28 


A   001410671    o 


M  00  NOT  REMOVE 
L»  BOOK  CARD  5  . 


Urtve,sity  Research  UWary 


fft 


